Consider how the brain could function in a way that is pretty literally just recording the sensations that your body physically experiences (from the wavelength of light to the temperature and pressure of touch to the chemicals of smell) when you encounter some unique thing, by drawing little diagrams – like the letter “A” only way more complex and in 3D – in the brain using the neurons as endpoints and the axons and dendrites connecting them as the lines. When remembering something, we might literally just be replaying the physical experience in the body in some way, with full sensurround experience. (Just on a more subtle scale most of the time.)

And memories, ideas, language, etc. are fuzzy because the diagrams that get drawn with the biological stuff inside the brain are like waves describing probability, rather than simple, unchanging, written-in-stone “facts”. When I experience the color purple, most of the time it’s a pleasant experience, but occasionally it’s not, so the brain remembers those edge cases, as well as the more common ones, to use for future predictions about what might happen when those sensory experiences occur again.

Evolution, be it genetic or memetic or otherwise, is the process of taking two unique wholes, splitting them in half (or more, perhaps) and combining those halves with different halves, making entirely new wholes. The wholes go on to split up so that they, too, can expand out into the larger environment — from the tiny spaces inside a tidal pool, to a whole solar system, or any other scale of space that life exists within — and what happens on their unique journey, going their own separate ways and then re/connecting with all the other individual animals, vegetables, minerals, and such, as the whole system is explored, is recorded in the memories and general structure of the matter that makes us “individual things” up. And then the best, most interesting, most useful, most relevant, information forms one grand story of Everything That Is.

These stories — information packets in any form, genes, art, ideas, culture, etc. — of things that work best for nurturing all the individual things in the system, helping them function and grow and thrive, are shared as widely as possible, so that they can be used to make more, new, individuals/wholes, forever pairing with other parts never before combined. (And the least useful, interesting, helpful stories get forgotten, for the most part, except perhaps as examples of what not to do). The more that this process of taking the best parts of one individual person, place, or thing, and smooshing them together with the best parts of another individual person, place, or thing happens, the more effective, interesting, and delightful life gets overall, for both the individuals and the whole amazing system.

For the vast majority of us humans the state of flow is… over there. Just out of our immediate reach.

But if we stretch ourselves we can get there, get to a state where our bodies, including our brains, are operating at peak performance.

And to get there we need BOTH the support of healthy resources, and just a little bit of discomfort. Too much ease and comfort will make us bored. Too much pain and suffering and frustration will immobilize us (or turn us psychopathic). But that nice balance of everything we need most, plus a little challenge to give us a problem to focus our skills and experience on, will lead us to accomplishing something we likely never imagined possible. Some research suggests that the discomfort level is ideal when there is a positive (comfort) to negative (discomfort) experience ratio of 5:1.

One of the biggest places people get stuck when looking for enlightenment — be it in the more traditional Eastern philosophies or the more modern Cognitive Behavioral Therapy of mainstream Western psychology — is how to accept reality while also not “giving up” or being like a “doormat” and “letting people walk all over you”.

How do we “go with the flow” while not getting swept up in a seriously dangerous or excessively lame current? Why not fight against the way things are going, and try to go where we want to go in the first place?

The gist of it is that we find a way to aim, while using the flow to our advantage, to accomplish something meaningful. And the more open we are to all the different kinds of things that are meaningful to us, rather than trying to force a specific one, the more likely we will succeed.

If the universe (or multiverse, if you prefer) is indeed generating a pure mathematical randomness of all possible patterns (which physicists seem to think is very likely) – with entropy being the process of evolution where all the stuff that exists is continually being divided into smaller parts and recombined into new things – then we end up with a reality that grows infinitely more interesting, complex, challenging, fun, weird, and unpredictably beautiful with each passing moment. We’re not talking pure boring perfection of ectasy all the time, of course, but an ever increasing level of discovery of intersting and amusing and fun stuff.

This means that while it might seem that everything that possibly could be created, invented, explored, discovered, and known might already have been created, invented, explored, discovered, and known, in the next moment those things will fall apart and reorganize themselves into totally new things, being created, invented, explored, discovered, and known.

The universe’s story not only goes on, but the plot always thickens, the people (whatever type exists at the time) always get more character development, the settings always get more atmospheric, and the special effects always get more stunning.

The Solstice is a time of change, stopping what we’ve been doing for a bit and then redirecting ourselves. Tilting another way.

Using this as a signal to reconsider what questions and problems you have had in life, and revisiting the answers, or lack of answers, you’ve found so far, to see if there might be some new person, place, or thing that might offer you something new.

Who haven’t you asked yet?

Which animal, vegetable, and/or mineral might have some nugget of information that you never imagined even existed?

What if enlightenment was hiding under that rock over there?

This solstice, turn some things over, maybe, just to see what you might have been missing.

Ask someone you never thought of asking before. Ask them how you might be able to do something that you’ve always wanted to do, but had given up on hoping you could ever get to do.

You never know who might show up with something unimaginably valuable…

When the generation of humans born in the 2010s and 2020s come into power, our world is going to go through an almost unbelievably dramatic paradigm change, from one that is focused on making material things (animal/vegetable/mineral) using a top-down/centralized control of life to one that is focused on exploring and collecting the immaterial ideas/information/energy while using a bottom-up/decentralized control of life.

And it is the more Autism Spectrum types, or at least the personally avoidant/flight introvert types, who will be the ones to lead us (again, from below, not above, us), gently nudging us forward in all different directions as they focus on understanding how the whole universe wants to flow, and helping the world be more fluid and free, so that everyone can follow their own unique path through life. This will allow the whole system to turn into something almost magical, the way a drop of ink in clear water will swirl into chaotically stunning patterns…

The future will be one where there are infinite possibilities, and our wildest dreams of today might pale in comparison to even just every day life in a decade or two.

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Links referenced in episode:

Government 4D (We’re beginning stage 111 now with the cooperative commons approach of Generation Z, and we’re heading into stage 1000 where everything about the way we organize society changes on a fundamental level.)

DSM-MBTI four quadrant diagram (Fight types are ESxx, Flight types are ISxx, Freeze types are INxx, and Flow types are ENxx – we’re governed by the Fight types now, and about to change over to being governed by the Flight types.)

The MBTI “Prime Directive Earth” map of how all the personalities contribute to our future. The ISFP, or 1000, types are going to be leading us all, from below, exploring and collecting ideas about how the universe flows, especially when it comes what’s going on inside us.

meta

You count!

I am for you

I do not mean my body is for you,
because I cannot speak for her,
as my body speaks for herself,
sometimes clumsily
sometimes elegantly
sometimes weakly,
sometimes with great strength
and always most independently
and wordlessly.

- a home for myself, my honey, and CREATE Space - a community resource center with artists, teachers, and scientists in residence using creative and innovative solutions to helping everyone in the world get what they need to be more awesome!
- good quality raw food
- transportation from where I am to other interesting places! (I'm currently in Stockton Springs, Maine)
- non-rusty bicycle (an old mtn. bike for a 5'2" human)
- Help starting a global non-profit!
- A hug from DPM :-)